A continuing trend in the electronics, automobile, avionics, and spacecraft industries, among other industries, is to create more and more compact apparatuses leading to an increase in the power density of such apparatuses. Accordingly, as the power density of such apparatuses increases, there may be a corresponding increase in thermal energy to be dissipated for operability of such apparatuses. Notably, the size of such apparatuses, as well as the systems in which they are implemented, may impose additional constraints on the size of heat dissipation devices used to transport such heat away.
Thus, the increase in power density of high-heat flux devices can make demands on heat dissipation devices more acute. This additional demand on the ability to transport heat is further exacerbated by generally smaller dimensions utilizable for such heat dissipation devices. Some examples of high-heat flux devices include microprocessors, graphics processing units, power-handling semiconductors, lasers, programmable logic devices, motherboards, and digital signal processors, among other known high-heat flux devices. Notably, as used herein throughout, the terms “include” and “including” shall mean include or including without limitation.
Conventional airflow-based heat dissipation devices include passageways through which air flows to transport heat away. Generally, a heat dissipating device includes a fan and a heat sink, where the heat sink includes a thermally conductive base plate with protruding fins. To increase the efficiency of heat removal, of air-based heat dissipation devices several factors are generally considered. These factors include: (1) surface area of the heat sink exposed to forced airflow; (2) airflow rate or velocity across the surface area of the heat sink, and (3) type of airflow, such as whether it is turbulent or laminar. Generally, turbulent airflow is known to be more effective at heat transfer than laminar airflow.
There are several known configurations of fan orientation of heat sinks, such as for example axial, radial, and cross-flow orientations. However, as heat dissipation demands of high-heat flux devices increase, and as these demands are further exacerbated by generally smaller dimensions utilizable for heat dissipation devices, these conventional types of fan-assisted heat-sink devices have diminishing usefulness for meeting current and evolving heat removal demands.
Accordingly, it would be desirable and useful to provide airflow-based heat dissipation more capable of meeting current and evolving heat removal demands.